Ligonier West Coast Conference - R.C. Sproul - I

The speaker this evening was Dr. R.C. Sproul. Dr. Sproul is respected worldwide for his ability to help Christians provide the reasons for what and why they believe. In addition to his duties as the founder and president of Ligonier Ministries, Dr. Sproul can also be heard daily on the radio and Internet program Renewing Your Mind. He also serves as the senior minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew's Chapel in Sanford, Fla., and he has authored over sixty books including Now, That's a Good Question!, Defending Your Faith, and Truths We Confess.

The title of Dr. Sproul's message is If God is Sovereign, How Can Man be Free? Dr. Sproul read from Genesis 50:15ff. He then walked us through the story of Joseph's faithfulness in the midst of various trials whereby he was treated unjustly first by his brothers, then by Potipher's wife, then by a fellow prisoner.

MAN FREELY CHOOSES EVIL, GOD PURPOSELY USES IT FOR GOOD

As his brothers beg for forgiveness (possibly motivated by a fear of punishment), they acknowledge that their actions toward Joseph were evil. Joseph asks them the question, "Am I in the place of God?" Joseph acknowledges that his brothers' intentions were evil. But he also recognizes that God was intimately involved in the evil that He experienced at the hands of his brothers. Joseph recognizes that even the treachery his brothers committed would be used by God for the good of those who love Him. Nevertheless, the acts committed were themselves evil. Evil behavior. Evil intentionality. But over and above the human intentionality, God was purposefully at work to bring about good.

Why do we call the day on which the most egregious act of injustice was committed "good Friday"? Because of God's intentionality.

Sproul noted that were it not for Joseph's coat of many colors--which pushed his brothers over the edge, prompting them to sell him into slavery--there would be no Potiphar, if no Potiphar, then no Potiphar's wife, and no going to jail, and no getting elevated to Pharoah's right hand man. But God is involved at every stage in this chain of events.

Inevitably, the question of God's sovereignty and man's freedom comes up. But it is not that hard if we remember: What is the difference between human beings and a Supreme being? One is Supreme. God is a volitional Being. He has a divine faculty whereby He makes decisions, undergoes choices. We humans are also volitional beings; our Creator has endowed us with a faculty of choosing. We have the ability to make choices.

There was a leading philosopher named Edmund Husserl (1859-1938). There was a big question in his day on the issue of "personalism". What is it that makes we humans "persons"? The answer Husserl submitted is that we have the ability to make choices. One of his disciples became a leading atheistic thinker: John Paul Sarte.

HUMAN FREEDOM OR HUMAN AUTONOMY?

Sarte argued that human freedom meant God could not be real. But Sarte's conception of freedom was autonomy. And unless you were free in the sense of autonomy, you could not be free. What does autonomy mean? Well, "auto" means self. And "mobile" is something that moves. So "auto" means self and "nomos" means law. So "autonomy" means, literally, "self law" or "self rule". So Sarte's idea was this: To be truly free we must have automony. We must have no accountability to anyone outside of us.

A true antimony (impossibility) would be reconciling God's sovereignty and man's autonomy. Those two are truly mutually contradictory. Human autonomy is the illegitimate, illicit reach of dependent creatures who want to elevate themselves to the level of God. In reality, God is free, His creatures are free - but in the Scriptures we see that God is freer than humans. If we say "God's freedom is limited by human freedom," we're actually making humans sovereign.

THE DOCTRINE OF CONCURRENCE

We talk about the doctrine of concurrence at this point. Joseph's brothers, in selling Joseph into slavery, did exactly what they wanted to do. Nobody forced them to do it. That said, we never limit God's freedom. God can always thwart human designs. Though we choose according to our desires, our very actions are made under God (with the enabling that God grants us). God's freedom is always larger. We are never autonomous.

On a moral plane, we are born into this world as slaves of sin. We are not morally able to do that which is truly good. We will act according with our desires, and in the manner that is according to our strongest inclination. And even when our desires are evil, God will work through them to bring about good.

You may have heard: "God saves everyone that He possibly can. He does the best He can, but He will never violate your will." The problem is that before God invaded our hearts, we were slaves of sin. In regeneration, God elevates our wills.